In the three-way race between conventional semiconductor PV, dye-activated
titanium dioxide and organic polymers, the organics may have just found
a performance-enhancing drug:
semiconductor nanoparticles (Hat tip: Slashdot). Peter Peumans is quoted as saying
that conversion efficiency may reach 30%, compared to today's 6%. (If
even 15% is achieved, the ~500 quads of sunlight falling on the impermeable
area of the USA could potentially yield ~75 quads of electricity. I
believe that most of the work currently done in the USA with oil, coal and
natural gas could be replaced by 75 quads of electricity with plenty left
over.)

In an e-mail communication from R.Martin Roscheisen of Nanosolar, I was
informed that the numbers I posted in
Out
of left field were "not quite correct". I responded with a
request for more accurate data to post. I've not yet heard back from
anyone, but I will attempt to update everything affected when I get a response.
¶ 1/10/2005 11:18:00 PM

Comments:

"...sunlight falling on the impermeable area of the USA..."

"The impervious area of the United States (roughly the area of Ohio) ..." (from an earlier post)

I'm not familiar with this terminology. I understand (I think) 'insolation,' but I'm unclear about 'impermeable' and 'impervious' in this context. Is there a glossary of basic terms I could look at?